The Quest for the Universal

The biblical Golden Rule, which states that we ought to act toward men as we ourselves would wish to be acted upon, was the “universal law”—to use Enlightenment language—of the pre-modern world. In his Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant gives us a modern retelling of the Rule in the form of his categorical imperative:

Therefore every rational being must so act as if he were by his maxims in every case a legislating member in the universal kingdom of ends. The formal principle of these maxims is: "So act as if thy maxim were to serve likewise as the universal law (of all rational beings)."

Kant’s ethical concern is to establish a rational, universal ethic which at the same time protects the individual’s autonomy. His two ends seem contradictory at first: how can a law which is universal allow for the ultimate freedom of the individual will? Or, practically, how can we establish that Peter should not rob Paul without infringing upon Peter’s will? The biblical Golden Rule would at first glance give the simple answer, because Peter himself would not want to be robbed by Paul, or anyone else. For Kant, however, this is not enough. The Golden Rule is too situational; it is based on the assumption that someone else would necessarily wish what you wish. Kant’s own rule, or “kingdom of ends,” moves “beyond” the unique situation, and even the persons involved, in order to arrive at the goal of universality. As E.W. Hirst explains Kant’s kingdom of ends, “if I can conceive my action universalized without contradiction, then the action is right. Morality depends upon a certain ability to will, i.e. to will without contradiction.” The result of this is that, “the reference to other persons…is only indirect and instrumental in order to find out what is duty for myself.”

Like Descartes, Kant wishes to provide mankind with the realization that it is possible to live in a world where one can know what is right and good, by using the faculty of reason, rather than through external or situational obligation: “the essence of things is not altered by their external relations.”

By application, if all men possess this same internal faculty of reason, they are likewise participants in a “legislature” of the kingdom of ends. Each legislator, in turn, must view his associates as equals—as ends rather than means to an end. There is no social (medieval) hierarchy whereby a greater person might treat a lesser person differently than he himself would wish to be treated. Rather, the universal law—by its impersonal, universal nature—establishes the freedom of the individual will. Kant even goes so far as to equate the autonomy of the will with the universal law: “An action that is consistent with the autonomy of the will is permitted; one that does not agree therewith is forbidden.”

Hirst comments that Kant, in his drive to establish a common morality and parallel autonomy of will, neglects entirely the personal dimension of ethics. In spite of the corporate metaphor of a legislature, Kant’s “kingdom” is composed of legislators who do nothing other than recognize a universal law which already exists in their individual minds. There is no need for discussion or debate; disagreement has been prohibited among the legislators. Says Hirst of this kingdom: “There is no suggestion that selves are united in any sense other than that they are alike subject to the same idea of duty. Kant still regards the self monadistically, able to attain ethical perfection by itself.” In addition to this, there is no sense that one man would not hurt another out of interest in that other person as a person, or neighbor—as Christ would put it. “The love of our neighbor from the Kantian point of view reduces down to the practice of social duty, not from any regard for our neighbor as such, but from reverence or respect for the Moral Law.” It seems that in the end, Kant’s ethic is guilty of the same charge that he leveled at the Golden Rule—that it is a self-respecting law which neglects the concerns of one’s neighbor.

Transcendence in the Flesh

The impersonal nature of Kant’s kingdom of ends should prompt a reconsideration of the biblical Golden Rule, which John Milbank argues is, in practice, much more than the law of simple reciprocity—where one acts in order to be acted upon in a certain way:

Reciprocity is summed up in the golden rule, and…is re-formulated by Kant. However, reciprocal friendship in the Middle Ages involved much more than this. Agreement in the good, upon which friendship was based, did not mean merely respect for the dignity of each other’s freedom. Instead it meant an orientation to a finally unknown, transcendent good, that was nonetheless ceaselessly and newly mediated through concrete historical circumstances.

This appears to be the key aspect of the Golden Rule which Kant failed to account for. While Kant aims to establish universality, he wants to do so without what might be termed an incarnate transcendence. In other words, the Golden Rule is a universal law; but it is also what Hirst calls an intra-personal law which it expressed in the mutual fulfillment and sacrifice of desires among people. Kant’s kingdom of ends existed in objective rationality. Milbank contrasts this to the medievals:

In Thomas Aquinas, for example, one will find—shockingly, perhaps to us—not a word which construes charity as the neutral altruistic love for the remote, but much about a hierarchical, preferential exercise of charity according to specific relations and affinities….there is no indifference to the remote or alien involved here, since within the ecclesia the remote for us is close to the warmth of charity for others, and all are close to God.

For moderns like Kant, the hierarchies and external obligations imposed by medieval society appeared entirely too subjective—one might even say, too earthy. As Milbank argues, the modern ethic is the “elevation of the disinterested above the interested.” Kant’s very premise is that morality is binding because it exists apart from persons and situations. Writes Milbank: “Kant—with immense honesty and non-evasive rigour—concludes: ‘it is wholly impossible to explain how and why the universality of a maxim as a law—and therefore morality—should interest us.” Implied is the idea that if we did actually have a vested interest in the law, it would no longer be valid. And this is the crucial divide between Kant and Christ, between the modern and the pre-modern. Milbank points out that Kant’s ethic is a defensive, protecting ethic; it does not seek to sacrifice for another’s benefit. Rather, Kant’s idea of “sublime” duty manifests itself publicly as “the safeguarding of abstract negative freedom and private property. By contrast, the morality of ‘Virtue’ is confined by Kant to the strictly private and non-jurisprudential sphere.” There is no drive toward self-sacrifice in Kant. And it would seem the act of laying down one’s life for a friend poses serious problems to an impersonal universal code.

The one ethical point which the medieval churchmen all began with is the point which Kant is unwilling to discuss—that there might be a Supreme Personality behind the universal law. When Kant argues that external (or personal) relations do not alter the ethical code, he presses his point so far as to argue that it is the autonomous will of man that provides the basis for judgment, and that “even the Supreme Being” must subject Himself to this universal law. Of course, the medievals disagreed. E.H. Stokes points out that for Augustine, the obligation of morality is necessarily binding because it derives from “a supremely righteous will.” In the ultimate hierarchy, God imposes a moral standard upon His creatures, who owe Him respect and obedience. And in this, a law of universal reason is established—and not because of an internal, self-respecting autonomy. But contrary to the modern assumption, this imposition is not violent, nor does it breed disagreement. Stokes summarizes Augustine: “the bond of unity in the city of God is personal devotion or love to the founder of the city.” God is Himself the “perfect harmony,” the Person whose commands order the world and give to men the kind of love which “readily [bears] all things for the sake of the loved object.”

It is this sort of external, social, personable order which provides a marked contrast to Kant. His world is tidy, coherent, and clear of the messiness of human interaction. It exists in a rational plane, above circumstances which require sacrifice rather than duty. Kant’s kingdom of ends ultimately fails to recognize the external, social demands of humanity. For, as Augustine argued, “there is nothing so social by nature as man, nothing so unsocial by corruption.” In failing to connect individual man with a transcendent Body, such as the Church, Kant effectively cut man off from any sort of sacrificial ethic. By removing the transcendent, demanding personality of God, Kant made an exile of love, and a hermit of man.